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AN ORATION °£Cl6i944 

DELIVERED AT 

THE CELEBRATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND 
SEVENTEENTH ANNIVERSARY 



Declaration of Independence, 

At the Invitation of the Councils of the 
Citv of Philadelphia, 

IN INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, JULY 4th, 1893, 



JAMES M. BECK, 

Of the Philadelphia Bar. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

Press of Allen, Lane & Scott. 

i8 9 3- 



Li y-A 



GROUND ARMS!" 



AN ORATION 



DELIVERED AT 



THE CELEBRATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND 
SEVENTEENTH ANNIVERSARY 



Declaration of Independence, 

At the Invitation of the Councils of the 
City of Philadelphia, 

IN INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, JULY 4 th, 1893, 



BY 

0* 






JAMES M. BECK, 

Of the Philadelphia Bar. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

Press of Allen, Lane & Scott. 

1-893- 






GIFT 

MRS. WOODROW WILSON 

NOV. 25, 1939 



^o 



•-S- 



"GROUND ARMS!" 





AN ORATION 



DELIVERED IN 



INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA, 
JULY 4 th, 1893. 



My Fellow-Countrymen : — One hundred and seventeen 
years ago this day some fifty provincial gentlemen, with knee 
breeches and powdered queues, the representatives of thirteen 
colonies of the British Crown, which, located on the edge of an 
unbroken wilderness, were less accessible to civilization than is 
the Congo now, met in Philadelphia, a country town of about 
twenty thousand people, and deliberating within the walls of 
the building within whose shadow I speak, thence issued to 
the world a statement of their grievances against the British 
Crown, and a declaration of their assumption of independent 
sovereignty. Apart from the statement of grievances, which 
was only of transient importance, the Declaration, as drafted 
by the young Virginian farmer-lawyer, contained a declaration 
of the rights of man more radical and revolutionary than any 
similar political document, and utterly subversive of adopted 
theories of government. At the time apparently insignificant, 
this event has become of overshadowing importance in the 
affairs of men. It lit a train of human revolt which has 
slowly and increasingly blasted a pathway of freedom for hu- 
manity through the granite rocks of Csesarism and feudalism. 
Well might Mirabeau say that, tried by its standard, every 
government in Europe was divested of its rights. To the 
masses of men in every part of the world, struggling to escape 
from the house of bondage and into the promised land, it has 
been as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. 
This is the areat fact of which the colossal statue in New York 



harbor is the beautiful symbol. It would be impossible to 
properly estimate its importance, for it can only be determined 
in its due perspective of time and result. Even in this evening 
of the nineteenth century we can as little appreciate its true 
position in history as one can judge the architectural beauty of 
the Cologne Cathedral by standing on its steps. Carry your 
minds forward in imagination yet another century. Picture 
to yourselves the greatest republic in the world, whose popu- 
lation will be two hundred millions, and whose territory will 
reach from the land of the North Star to that of the Southern 
Cross, reflecting the most splendid and perhaps the culmina- 
ting civilization of the world, and from such vantage ground 
you can appreciate that in the preceding two thousand years 
of human history the three events which ma)- then dominate 
the entire landscape, even as Mt. Blanc rises above its fellows, 
are the birth of Christ, the discovery of America, and the Decla- 
ration of Independence. The first gave to men a new spirit, 
which has since leavened humanity; the second, a great conti- 
nent, whereon, as on a stage, the splendid drama of democracy 
could be enacted ; and the third, a free people, who have de- 
monstrated their capacity to rule themselves. Of each event 
one can say, in the exalted language of Richter, that it has 
" lifted empires off their hinges, turned the stream of the cen- 
turies out of its channel, and still governs the ages." 

We would dishonor ourselves did we fail to celebrate an 
event so glorious ; and what more fitting place on the face of 
the whole earth for such commemoration than here within 
the shadow of the tower from which, as from Pharos, the light 
of liberty has streamed, under the gothic arches of God's trees, 
and in the presence of the historical descendants of the peo- 
ple who first heard the old bell in joyful reverberations "pro- 
claim liberty throughout the land and unto all the inhabitants 
thereof?" What Mecca is to the Mussulman and Jerusalem 
to the Israelite, must henceforth forever this temple be to 
every lover of liberty. Did we not thus meet in high festival, 
these very walls would cry out against us. Indeed even now 
they speak to us out of the past, reminding us with an elo- 
quence unattainable by mortal man of our debt to the dead 
and our duty to the unborn. Here then we have met, my 



countrymen, on the greatest festal day in our nation's calen- 
dar, and to Him by whose gracious ordinance the word was 
spoken, we will appeal in the simple but stately language of 
Whittier's Centennial hymn : — 

" Our father's God, from out whose hand 
The centuries fall like grains of sand, 

We meet to-day, united, free, 

And loyal to our land and Thee, 
To thank Thee for the era done, 
And trust Thee for the opening one." 

It is the unique distinction of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence that its definition of liberty is so full and ample that time 
cannot make it obsolete. Other similar events have been 
but milestones in the march of progress. The Magna Charta 
and the petition of right are no longer sufficient in themselves 
to satisfy the ripened aspirations of men, but when Jefferson 
drafted the great Declaration he drew for all mankind, without 
distinction to race, condition, or creed, a title deed to liberty, 
so broad and comprehensive that " time cannot wither nor 
custom stale " its eternal verity. That all men are created 
equal ; that they have a right as the gift of God and independ- 
ent of government to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness ; that governments derive their just powers from the 
consent of the governed ; that the people have the inherent 
right to alter or abolish their government when it has ceased to 
answer their necessities, thus constituting the people the first 
and only estate, are principles which satisfy the highest ideals 
of liberty. By the much quoted and much misunderstood 
axiom, that all men are created equal, Mr. Jefferson did not 
mean either a natural equality or even an equality of natural 
opportunity, for either would contradict the common observa- 
tion of men, which discloses as infinite a difference between men 
and their environments as between the stars. He was simply 
defining the province of government, and he was contending 
that politically all men were equal and that the government, 
therefore, should not give to any man an artificial and law- 
made advantage over another. " Equal and exact justice to 
all men, special privileges to none." He therefore proscribed 
the spirit of caste, and an hereditary monarch or a feudal 



aristocracy came equally under his anathema. He illustrated 
his meaning by his last and most significant commentary on 
the text of the instrument which is inseparably connected with 
his name. When asked nine days before his death to write a 
sentiment for the forthcoming fiftieth anniversary of the Decla- 
ration — the day of jubilee on which, by a singular coincidence, 
he was destined to die — he wrote, " The eyes of men are opened 
and opening to the rights of men. * * * The mass of 
men are not born with saddles on their backs nor a favored 
few booted and spurred ready to ride them legitimately by the 
grace of God." It is to be feared that we have hardly realized 
as yet his splendid ideal, else why the extraordinary honors 
recently paid within our country to the representatives of the 
class who claim, by the right of heredity, " to ride booted 
and spurred the masses of mankind ? " We have witnessed the 
gentleman in charge of the Spanish princess write circular 
letters instructing American ladies and gentlemen how to 
act in the presence of royalt)^, and we have read his complaint 
that the Infanta had been insulted and annoyed by the social 
snobs and tuft-hunters, who insisted upon thrusting them- 
selves into her presence. Eminent foreigners, distinguished 
for learning and genius, have visited our shores comparatively 
unnoticed, but the possession of a title has seemed to have 
the fascination for our countrymen that the candle has for 
the moth. These ovations to Spanish grandees and Russian 
nobles, in so far as they are inspired by considerations of 
rank, are wrong. Otherwise Mr. Jefferson was wrong, and if 
he was wrong, then America was wrong. The spirit of caste 
is not dead nor the race of Tories wholly extinct. 

The noblest virtue of the great Declaration was the spirit 
which impelled it. This was so far in advance of the times as 
to deserve comment here, and it is to this I desire to di- 
rect especial attention. It is obvious that the statement of 
grievances was not intended for the colonists. No need 
existed to remind them what they had suffered. The intoler- 
able burdens and wrongs set forth in this terrible indictment 
of the British Crown had driven its loyal and willing sub- 
jects to open rebellion, and had been burned into their recol- 
lection as with a red-hot iron. For years they had been the 



subject of innumerable pamphlets, speeches, petitions, and 
discussions both in England and America. The time for dis- 
cussing them with the Mother Country had ceased with the 
first shot of the embattled farmers at Lexington. The 
purpose of the Declaration, as clearly set forth in its 'noble 
preamble, was to appeal to the justice of the world in 
support of the necessity of the separation. It commences, 
" When in the course of human events it becomes neces- 
sary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have 
connected them with another * * * a decent respect to the 
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes 
which in/pel them to the separation!' No State paper ever con- 
tained a nobler sentiment than this. It assumed that there 
was a rule of right and wrong and of justice and injustice 
that regulated the intercourse of nations as well as individuals. 
It is believed that there was a great human conscience, which, 
rising higher than the selfish interests and prejudices of na- 
tions and races, would approve that which was right and con- 
demn that which was wrong. It felt that this approval was 
more to be desired than national advantage. It constituted 
mankind a judge between contending nations, and lest its 
judgment should temporarily err it established posterity as a 
court of last resort. It placed the tie of humanity above 
that of nationality. It solemnly argued the righteousness 
of the separation at the bar of history, solemnly prefixing 
its statement of grievances with the words : " In proof of 
this, let facts be submitted to a candid world;" and finally 
concluded its appeal from the judgment of the moment 
to that of eternity, in the words : "Appealing to the Supreme 
Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions." The 
nobility of this appeal becomes more manifest when we re- 
gard the conditions of thought at that time. There existed 
then no law of right or wrong between nations. Mankind 
was engaged on both sides of the Atlantic in armed con- 
flicts, which succeeded each other with horrible frequency and 
intensity. While at nominal peace, nations levied commercial 
warfare against each other by prohibitive tariffs and burden- 
some legal restrictions. Each Government regarded its own 
selfish interests as the highest and only good. International 



8 

law existed only in name, and consisted of " a wilderness of 
single instances.'" Wars were commenced without provoca- 
tion — often without a formal declaration, — were conducted 
without regard to the rights of neutrals and non-combatants, 
or the commonest dictates of humanity, and were consum- 
mated by the wholesale spoliation of territory and the pil- 
laging of galleries, museums, and libraries. The armies of 
Wellington and Napoleon were only worthy of Alaric or 
Attila. The only law of nations was that ascribed by the poet 
to Rob Roy, 

"The good old rule 
Sufficed! them, the simple plan, 
That they should take who have the power, 
And they should keep who can." 

Think, for example, of the events which took place in Europe 
within the succeeding forty years ; of the decrees by which 
France and England forbade the world to trade with the 
other, and under cover of which they preyed upon the 
commerce of the world like hawks upon a dove-cote; of the 
destruction of the Danish fleet, and the bombardment of 
Copenhagen by England in advance of any declaration of 
war and without any provocation ; of Napoleon's invasion 
of neutral territory and the assassination of the Due D'Eng- 
hein, of his appropriation of whole countries without regard 
to the wishes of their inhabitants by placing Bernandotte on the 
throne of Sweden, Murat on that of Naples, his brother Louis 
on that of Holland, Jerome on that of Westphalia, and Joseph 
on that of Spain. In such an age, with every nation as an 
Ishmael, there would seem to have been no sentiment of right 
or wrong or enlightened conscience of man to which an appeal 
could be made. The sentiment of the Declaration, made out 
of "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind," is therefore 
the more striking and commendable. We need not stop to 
note how splendidly that appeal has been sustained. As the 
Declaration states, facts were submitted to a candid world, 
which in an age of force convinced the calm reason of 
humanity, and when, a century later, the time-stained docu- 
ment, to which our fathers had pledged their lives, their for- 
tunes, and their sacred honors, was brought out on this very 



spot, the representatives of every nation, including that of 
England herself, were here to testify by their presence their 
approval of an appeal to the universal conscience of man. 
The United States has demonstrated its right to separate ex- 
istence and no discordant protest is now heard against its 
splendid vindication by humanity. 

I am persuaded that the spirit, of which this Declaration 
was only an expression, is now a new force in humanity. In 
the one hundred and seventeen intervening years the world 
has progressed so swiftly towards an enlightened sense of 
justice that a " decent respect to the opinions of mankind " is 
a greater power in regulating the intercourse of nations 
than the combined armies and navies of the world. Each 
nation does at least in some measure fear to-day the dis- 
approval of humanity and covets as a good the approval 
of posterity. This respect for public opinion is increasingly 
causing nations to arbitrate their differences by other means 
than that wretched survival of barbarism — war. Prior to 
the nineteenth century, there is hardly an instance when 
nations settled their grievances other than by a resort to 
the sword, while during the present century over seventy- 
five disputes have been adjusted by mediation and arbitra- 
tion. Of these twenty-five related to claims for damages 
to citizens in one country while in the offending country; 
in sixteen disputed boundaries were amicably fixed ; and in 
five the yet more difficult questions of disputed acquisitions 
of new territory were peacefully decided. In some of these 
cases the national honor and historical prestige were believed 
to be involved and found entirely capable of amicable adjust- 
ment, namely, the Luxemburg question of 1867, the Crete 
affair, and the Alabama claims. The incalculable gain to 
humanity of these peaceful arbitraments can be measured by 
the stupendous fact that in the wars of the nineteenth century 
over fifteen thousand millions of dollars have been spent and 
over five millions of men killed. The mind cannot grasp the mag- 
nitude of the figures. The largest single aggregation of human 
beings is the city of London, and when we reflect that a num- 
ber of people exceeding the teeming population of the English 
metropolis have fallen beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of 



IO 

war, we can appreciate the belief of every thoughtful man 
that the ordeal of battle is both a crime against humanity and 
a relic of primitive barbarism. The questions sought to be 
decided by war have rarely remained adjusted, notwithstanding 
the imposing and awful demonstration of brute force. Take, 
for example, the unhappy Rhine provinces. Torn from Ger- 
many by France nearly two centuries ago, and entirely galli- 
cized in that time, yet no statute of limitations availed France 
when, humiliated and well-nigh annihilated by the armies of 
Germany, it was obliged to again yield Alsace and Lorraine. 
Nor is their ownership determined to-day. In the event of a 
French triumph in the next war, it is safe to assume that 
the first and imperative condition of peace would be the re- 
covery of Alsace and Lorraine. In the meantime, as if charged 
with the curse of God, these little provinces are making of 
Europe an armed camp, compelling twenty-seven millions of 
men to be ready for a possible death, and driving the nations 
of Europe to inevitable bankruptcy. What the armies of 
France and Germany, the grandest in organization and equip- 
ment that the world has ever known, have thus signally failed 
to do, namely, to definitely decide a single question — and 
that in itself a comparatively unimportant one — the moral 
power of a " decent respect to the opinions of mankind" has 
done without shedding a drop of blood, for in the seventy- 
five instances of peaceful mediation heretofore alluded to there 
was, with but one exception, a loyal and lasting submission 
to the results of the arbitrament of peace. This power of 
moral sentiment, sneered at by the unthinking and superficial, 
can be measured in yet another way. England and America 
are to-day arbitrating the question of territorial rights and 
alleged unlawful seizures, both formerly fruitful subjects of 
war, and are thus affording an impressive object lesson to 
humanity which is worth a dozen naval reviews or army 
mobilizations. Let us suppose that the international court at 
Paris should decide in favor of Great Britain. England, in- 
deed all the world, could not enforce that judgment if the 
United States refused to obey it. Guarded as we are by two 
mighty oceans, and with our inexhaustible resources, the 
combined armies and navies of the world could not conquer 



II 

us. We are to-day invincible. The power, therefore, that 
would compel us to loyally accept the decision would be the 
" decent respect to the opinions of mankind," which would 
condemn as iniquitous and shameful bad faith in such arbitra- 
tion. 

Herein lies the possibility of a period of perpetual peace. 
Notwithstanding the fact that today men are making prepa- 
rations in Europe for war on a scale unprecedentedly vast, and, 
paradoxical as it may therefore seem, I believe that the time 
will come when men will "beat their swords into plow- 
shares and their spears into pruning-hooks." How many 
deluges of blood lie between I know not, but I clearly see 
His bow in the cloud, as a covenant of peace. This may 
seem the wild dream of a visionary, but we are celebrating in 
this Columbian year the triumph of a dreamer, and that the 
greatest civic achievement in history. In existing conditions 
of thought it is indeed hard to accept the possibility of a 
day when the mutual hatreds of nations, which exist inde- 
pendent of disputed questions, and are the baneful heritage of 
the centuries, can be determined otherwise than by war. 
Apparently they do not admit of arbitration. But may not 
this apparent impossibility disappear with the growing senti- 
ment of fraternity in men ? Nor am I alone in this opinion. 
A learned French philosopher, Michel Revon, whose work 
has recently received the medal of the French Academy, 
states that unless a general war takes place in Europe within 
the next ten years the spirit of militarism will lose its 
power. It is true that the great battle-thinker of our time, 
Von Moltke, who has carried the organization of armies 
to a perfection not reached by even Napoleon, has said 
that " Peace is only a dream, and not even a beautiful 
dream. War," he adds, "is ordained by God." Neverthe- 
less, even as the power of the Roman Empire was doomed 
in its hour of unchallenged supremacy when the Prince of 
Peace lay in his manger at Bethlehem, so I believe the spirit 
of militarism, now apparently at its highest development, is in 
reality losing its iron sway on the minds of men. As our 
own great commander has well said, "Arbitration may not 
satisfy either nation at the time, but it satisfies the conscience 



12 

of mankind and must commend itself more and more as a 
means of adjusting disputes." Indeed, General Grant, better 
than Bismarck with his "blood and iron," caught the spirit of 
his time in those words, remembered above his every other 
utterance, " Let us have peace." However comparatively 
unnoticed it may have been the English Parliament has rarely 
done a nobler or better act than when it unanimously passed, 
on June 16th, 1893, a resolution, authorizing Her Majesty's 
Government to conclude a general treaty with the United 
States to submit all future questions between the countries to 
arbitration. 

The trouble with our and preceding ages has been that 
man has still sufficient of the original barbarian to approve 
and applaud war. We have not yet learned to take a hori- 
zontal view of the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." The 
current belief is that "Thou shalt not kill " means "Thou 
shalt kill " — under given circumstances. We do not content 
ourselves with applauding a defensive war, which is often in- 
evitable and morally defensible, but we regard as of paramount 
glory a war of aggression and conquest. That which is a 
crime between individuals we defend between nations. A 
single murder we consider the gravest of all offenses and 
punish accordingly, whether done in the heat of passion or 
not ; but murder by the hundred thousand, cruelly and 
deliberately planned months in advance, in which the vic- 
tims are generally the involuntary result of forced drafts, this 
we enthusiastically applaud. If we were but honest with 
ourselves we would admit that we regard it as the most 
glorious of all pastimes. By the very toys and books we give 
our children we instil in them the martial ardor. Men go to 
the tented field, not robed in the,black of mourning or the 
scarlet of the executioner, but gaily attired as for a ball- 
room. Indeed, as in the night before Waterloo, they 
have gone in the same habiliments from the dance of life 
to the dance of death. The strains of music which pre- 
cede it are not funereal in character but have the festal and 
triumphant strain of a bridal chorus. Men of generous and 
Christian instincts rejoice in it as in a profession. The 
women of our day, rivaling the stern Roman matrons, who 



13 

awarded life or death to the gladiators with their " habet or 
Hon habet" or emulating the queen of beauty who awarded 
the wreath to the victorious in the mediaeval tournaments, 
sit in this greater tourney of the nations and reward the victors 
with their smiles and approbation. They indeed must accept 
a share of the moral responsibility. It has been well and 
truthfully stated by that great ethical teacher, Mr. Ruskin, 
that the prevention of war is within the power of women. 
He says : " Let but every Christian lady who has conscience 
toward God, vow that she will mourn, at least outwardly, for 
His killed creatures. Your praying is useless, and your 
church-going mere mockery of God, if you have not plain 
obedience in you enough for this. Let every lady in the up- 
per classes of civilized Europe simply vow that, while any 
cruel war proceeds she will wear black — a mute's black — with 
no jewel, no ornament, no excuse for or evasion into pretti- 
ness — I tell you again no war would last a week." This 
may at first impress the hearer as the wild enthusiasm 
of a visionary, but who could measure the effect upon the 
human mind of universal mourning while any war proceeds. 
The real possibility of zvar lies in our callous indifference to 
it. The whole world was recently thrilled by the loss 
of Her Majesty's ship Victoria, with four hundred of her 
officers and crew, due to an accidental blow of the ram 
of the Camperdown. Strange paradox ! We lament as an 
accident what we would applaud if done by design. Such a 
loss of life in war would be so insignificant as hardly to receive 
notice. For every life lost by this accident a hundred fell at 
Gettysburg, while in that frightful holacaust of human life, the 
Russian campaign of 1812, it is estimated that one hundred 
and twenty-five thousand men perished in battle, one hundred 
and twenty-three thousand died of hunger and cold, and one 
hundred and ninety thousand were taken prisoners. The mind 
cannot grasp the dimensions of such a disaster, and blunted 
and deadened as our sensibilities are by the alleged necessity of 
war, this frightful tragedy on the stage of the world has called 
forth less tears than the ending of Hamlet on the stage of the 
theatre. 

As the nineteenth century draws to its close, the signs are 



multiplying that humanity is awakening from this nightmare 
and that the twentieth century will bring the dawn of a better 
day. Nothing can be more striking to the thoughtful ob- 
server than the progress that has been made in the crusade 
against war. The opinion of mankind is slowly but surely 
condemning it. It would be interesting, indeed, to trace this 
gradual development of this peace sentiment. Sporadic 
attempts at peaceful mediation could be mentioned by the 
Popes in the Middle Ages, by Henry IV. of France, who 
proposed a universal league of peace in the early part 
of the seventeenth century, but the first practical attempt 
to substitute the power of love for that of force was made 
by William Penn upon the banks of the Delaware, and, 
curiously enough, the contracting parties were seemingly 
the most divergent, namely, the peaceful Quakers and the ab- 
original savages. Meeting on that delightful shore "that is 
washed by the Delaware's waters," the illustrious Quaker, to 
whom be eternal honor, said to the Indian chiefs: " The great 
God has written His law in our hearts by which we are told 
and commanded to love and to help and to do good to one 
another. It is not our custom to use hostile weapons against 
our fellow creatures. For which reason we have come un- 
armed. Our object is not to do injury but to do good. We 
have met them in the broad pathway of good faith and good 
will, so that no advantage can be taken on either side, but all 
is to be openness, brotherhood, and love, and all are to be 
treated as of the same flesh and blood." To that those 
whom we in our arrogance have called savages replied, 
" While the sun shines and the river runs, we will keep peace 
with William Penn and his children." This treaty, of which 
it has been said that it was inscribed not on parchment but 
on human hearts, was observed with scrupulous fidelity for 
over seventy years, and Pennsylvania and the City of 
Brotherly Love (noblest title of any city in the whole world) 
never heard during that golden period the war-whoop of the 
savage or the clangor of clashing arms. In that coming day 
of perpetual peace, the founder of Pennsylvania will be justly 
regarded as its morning star, heralding in a night of bar- 
barism the approaching dawn. In the eighteenth cen- 



*5 

tury Voltaire launched his curse against war in his noble 
sentiment, "Every European war is a civil war;" while on 
August 25th, 1790, the orator of the Revolution, Mirabeau, 
made this prediction as to the influence of democracy 
upon war: "Perhaps the hour is not far distant when 
Freedom as absolute sovereign of both worlds will ful- 
fill the wish of the philosophers and relieve mankind from 
the crime of war, and proclaim eternal peace." These 
peaceful utterances of men, who, treading the mountain 
ranges of prophetic observation, descried the dawn, were 
soon lost sight of in that fearful cataclysm, the French 
Revolution and the wars of Napoleon, and it was not until 
the latter was sent to St. Helena, "the mighty somnambulist 
of a shattered dream " of universal empire, that the still 
small voice of peace was again heard. The sovereigns of 
Austria, Russia, Prussia, and France entered into the Holy 
Alliance, by which they bound themselves "to aid one' an- 
other in conformity with Holy Scriptures on every occasion." 
The primary purpose of the alliance was to compel and main- 
tain peace, but, unfortunately for humanity, it was soon per- 
verted to choke the growing democracy of Europe and throt- 
tle freedom. But the idea was in the minds of men, and 
was compelling nations, perhaps from the sheer exhaustion 
of previous wars, to determine their disputes by peaceful 
'methods. At first this was accomplished by the mediation 
of a friendly sovereign, and dispute after dispute was submit- 
mitted to a ruler of a neutral State and by them decided. 
This mediation could not long answer the purposes of peace, 
for it possessed the obvious objections that it was not always 
easy to secure a mediator who was disinterested and unbiased 
or one with sufficient capacity to interpret treaties and na- 
tional laws. At the Paris congress which put an end to the 
Crimean war, the first important step was taken to insure 
peace when, at the instance of the International Peace Society, 
a clause was inserted in that treaty by which the powers 
pledged themselves to consider conditions of peace before be- 
ginning war; but the method of adjusting the differences, 
whether by mediation of a friendly sovereign or a court of 
arbitration, was not mentioned. 



i6 

A nobler and better course was suggested, and it is to 
a Philadelphian that the credit is due, and as usual such 
credit is conspicuously wanting. In March, 1865, Thomas 
Willing Balch suggested by a public letter that the pending 
Alabama claims, which seemed incapable of adjustment, and 
were a source of intense irritation between our country 
and England, should be decided by a court of arbitration to 
be composed of one representative of each country and three 
representatives to be appointed by foreign powers. One can 
appreciate the advance of public sentiment in the last quarter 
of a century when I state that Mr. Balch could not for a time 
persuade a newspaper to even publish his letter, until finally 
it found a place in the columns of the New York Tribune. 
Mr. Balch also submitted his idea to President Lincoln, who, 
however, rejected it on the ground that it savored too much 
of the millennium. Mr. Lincoln added, however, in his quaint 
way, that " the idea was worth airing." It was not until 1871 
that the commissioners from England and the United States 
signed the treaty at Washington, by which they agreed to 
submit their cause of quarrel to an international court of ar- 
bitration. The appointment of said court, their meeting at 
Geneva, their subsequent award in favor of the United States, 
and the loyal submission to it of Great Britain, constitute a 
milestone in the march of human progress. 

The trend of thought can often be determined by care- 
fully observing the tendencies and purposes of the novels at 
present attracting public interest. Thus, three novels have 
appeared in recent years, each of which has the same moral 
purpose. The fact that these writers differ in nationality, 
the one a Frenchman, the second a Russian, the third an 
Austrian, and that the success of each of their works has 
been pronounced, not only in their own countries but all 
over the world, would seem to indicate that their high pur- 
pose has found a responsive echo in the minds of men. I 
refer to Tolstoi's " War and Peace," Suttner's " Ground Arms," 
and Zola's " The Downfall." Each with a most powerful 
realism, which is one of the characteristics of current fiction, 
depicts war as it is. Theirs are not the pictures of conflict to 
which we have been accustomed — not the battle as the general 



*7 

sees it, from the safe vantage ground of a remote hillock, but 
the red sea of carnage, into which men plunge in the mad 
frenzy of the nations. War has no glamour for these writers. 
The dismembered bodies, the mad passions, the hideous ex- 
cesses, the disregard of the sanctity of life, the pathos of the 
hospital with its attendant scourge of cholera and typhus, 
the martyrdom of the battle-field, in which thousands of the 
innocent expiate the sins of others, the destruction of prop- 
erty, the injury to the advance of the peaceful arts, the fearful 
aftermath of international prejudices and hatreds thereby 
sown, are the aspects of war which they describe with a terror 
of description as though their pens were dipped in blood. 
Their argument is for the universal disarmament of nations, 
as the only method of inaugurating the period of peace. 

It is an interesting fact, and more than a mere coincidence, 
that contemporary art reveals the same protest against the 
war spirit. Its tendency is to make war repulsive rather than 
glorious. It treats it in a cosmopolitan rather than a selfishly 
national spirit. Between the French battle painters of the 
beginning and end of our century there is a vast difference in 
the spirit with which the subject is treated. One who gazes 
upon the acres of canvas in the Palace of Versailles will 
notice that battles are always pictured in a manner to 
captivate the spectator with the idea of war, and to inflame 
the martial spirit. The French are always victorious, and 
the enemy always in retreat. Even in the battle of York- 
town, as depicted in this series, an American will notice with 
considerable amusement that the foremost figures are Rocham- 
beau and De Grasse, while Washington is crowded into the 
obscure background. The paintings, however, of Detaille and 
De Neuville are entirely different in conception and treatment. 
They not merely represent the ghastly horrors of war, but 
they treat their countrymen and their enemies with equal 
fairness. Take, for example, De Neuville's noble picture, 
" A Parley " (Un Parliamentaire). It represents a shell- 
stormed French village, into which some German officers 
have entered blindfolded and under the protection of a flag of 
truce. The German officers are depicted in a manner with 
which their compatriots could not possibly quarrel. Yet the 



i8 

wicked folly of the war is indicated in a simple peasant 
woman, who, with her house shattered by the shells and in 
ruins before her, shakes her clenched fist in maniacal frenzy 
at these representatives of the invaders. One feels that the 
painter means no reflection upon the German officers. They 
are pawns moved upon the chess-board of war by higher 
powers, but the protest of the shrieking woman is the welt- 
schmerz — the groan of the world at this colossal iniquity. 

The Russian painter, Verestschagin, has given the subject 
the same repulsive character. His- picture of the battle of 
Plevna, in which the Czar is leisurely seated at a table watch- 
ing the battle from a distance, gave great offense in Russia. 
His pictures of the dying and the slain are marked by a 
terrible fidelity to nature, which some have thought beyond 
the proper limits of art. Yet the painter should hold the 
" mirror up to nature," and Verestschagin has served his day 
and generation well by awakening with his brush the indigna- 
tion of men at the frightful results of the battle. 

Let me finally and very briefly state a few of the many con- 
siderations which, in my judgment, inevitably tend to peace. 
Each is deserving of far more careful treatment than is possible 
at present, and opens a vista of indefinite and glorious possi- 
bilities which it will repay any one to consider. Be it my 
task simply to summarize them in the shortest way. 

I . The spirit of democracy will lessen the possibility of war. 
Nothing can be more sure than its rising tide. Its stride is 
that of a seven -leagued giant. The masses of the people, who 
are the real sufferers from war, ordinarily do not cause it, 
while, on the contrary, the greatest number of armed conflicts 
have been due to the arrogance and pride or personal selfish- 
ness of rulers. Take, for example, the Franco-Prussian war. 
It is well known that Napoleon the Third, sick both in mind 
and body, did not desire the conflict, but, on the contrary, 
was seriously meditating but twelve months before it opened 
a proposal looking to the mutual disarmament of Europe and 
the constitution of an international court of arbitration. Un- 
happily for France, his self-willed and headstrong Empress 
desired the war in the interests of the Napoleonic dynasty, 



and at her instigation, added to the self-confessed alteration 
of dispatches by Bismarck, there was precipitated that short 
but terrible conflict which terminated in the "terrible year" 
and the partial destruction of Paris. Undoubtedly this war 
could not have been commenced had it not received a popular 
support from the French people, but the bad counsel of the 
Empress and her immediate advisers was the stick that 
started the avalanche. The unhappy queen of fashion, when 
her only son fell beneath a Zulu spear, must have keenly felt 
the immeasurable sorrow that her foolish ambition had in part 
inflicted upon France. With the advance of parliamentary 
government the day is not far distant when no ruler can de- 
clare war without the consent of the people, and that will 
materially lessen such conflicts. 

2. The advance of civilization has increased the sense of 
brotherhood of men by facilitating the communication of ideas, 
and has made possible a public opinion strong enough to repress 
these and other evils. The newspaper which we each morning 
pick from our door-steps, acquaints us with the happenings of 
the world during the last twenty-four hours, and creates an 
interest on our part in the general welfare of humanity that 
was impossible a century ago. The telegraph has brought all 
men as under one roof, and the cable enables Gresham and 
Gladstone to discuss questions of mutual interest almost as 
freely as if they were sitting at the same table. The steam- 
ship which can cross the Atlantic in five days and seventeen 
hours, and the railroad train which can carry passengers from 
New York to San Francisco in five days, cause the mingling 
of men and their mutual intercourse until by friendly contact 
and the realization of their mutual helpfulness their national 
prejudices and hatreds have been forgotten. Hence have 
arisen the great international expositions, commencing with 
the one in London in 185 I and terminating with the present 
at Chicago. Had the Prince Consort done nothing more for 
humanity than instituting these friendly competitions of brain 
and muscle he would have deserved his beautiful monument at 
Hyde Park. These peaceful Olympiads of industry cannot 
help but weaken the inborn hatreds of different races, which 



2Q 

are in the least analysis the profound and underlying causes 
of war. 

3. The development of means of destruction will serve to 
prevent war. Speaking on the army bill a few years ago, 
Prince Bismarck stated that to the next war between France 
and Germany the last would be but child's play. He further 
added that it would be a war of exceptional ferocity, and, fit- 
tingly borrowing a figure from the shambles, he said that on 
the part of the victor it would be a case of " bleeding white." 
This metaphor relates to the habit of butchers drawing the 
last drop of blood from certain kinds of cattle to make their 
flesh white. It is undoubtedly true that since the last war 
cannon and rifles have been so developed that unless some 
sufficient armor can be found for the human body the mortal- 
ity would be unexampled. I believe it was General Sheridan 
who, commenting on this fact in an address at West Point, 
said that the next war would be one of annihilation. Un- 
doubtedly this fact contributes materially to the present 
peace of Europe. Europe is to-day afraid to engage in war, 
while the democratic masses are sullenly refusing to be " food 
for powder" in the interest of their rulers. 

4. The United States, I firmly believe, will compel peace at 
no distant day, and it will do this without any intention on 
her part. Here is a fact whose importance has been almost 
overlooked. The governments of Europe are to-day bank- 
rupt under great debts, whose payment is impossible. Mili- 
tary service is well-nigh universal, and out of every five men one 
is constantly in arms. It has been estimated that it takes the 
work of one farmer or manual laborer to sustain each soldier 
in the army, and thus two men out of every five are unnec- 
essarily drawn from the productive forces of the nations. 
The military burdens, together with past debts, are so 
crushing that economic forces are paralyzed and the masses 
are in a state of revolt. With land enhanced in price, with 
raw materials difficult of access, weighed down by the 
burdens of a military and civil list, the time is not far distant 
when these nations cannot compete with the United States 
unless they throw off such burdens. With our own debt re- 



21 

duced by marvelous recuperation to but little over $500,000,- 
000, with the certainty that in the next quarter of a century 
both it and our pension list will be practically obliterated, with 
an abundance of cheap land, with unrivaled and inexhaustible 
natural resources, with the most inventive, intelligent, and 
productive labor in the world, the economic primacy of the 
world will be ours. The desire of America is now to enter 
the markets of the world and challenge all comers. It re- 
quires no knowledge of political economy to state that in 
such competition the decrepit and bankrupt nations of the 
continent, staggering and groaning under the most frightful 
burden of military power the world has ever known, must in- 
evitably be driven to the wall unless they disarm. It is my 
firm belief, therefore, that America is destined to be not sim- 
ply the liberator but the pacificator of civilization. 

5. To this last consideration perhaps should be added the 
thought, not of an Anglo-American reunion, advocated by Mr. 
Andrew Carnegie in the North American Review for June, 
1893, but of an Anglo-American alliance in the interests of 
peace. They are the only two countries upon which the sun 
does not set, and which are beyond question unconquerable by 
any power that could be sent against them. Together they unite, 
without counting their colonial dependencies, an English- 
speaking nation numbering to-day over one hundred millions 
of people, and destined within fifty years to number two hun- 
dred millions. While each is an amalgam of other races — 
and happily so, as mixed races have ever been the strongest — 
yet the main stock of each nation is Teutonic in origin. They 
have in common the same language, literature, and law- 
Should these two nations join hands in the interests of peace 
and say — 

" For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl. 
He that stirs next to carve for his own rage 
Holds his soul light. He dies upon his motion," 

their influence must be a great and beneficent one. These 
two are the greatest competitors for the world's industrial 
supremacy, and they will compel by their own comparative 
freedom from governmental burdens a like exemption on the 
part of other countries. 



22 

6. We would omit the greatest consideration that justifies 
the hope of peace did we not mention Christianity. I mean 
by that no ecclesiastical organization, but the impulse of for- 
bearance, self-sacrifice, and love that the world owes to the 
great Martyr, and which to-day animates all religions, Jew 
or Gentile, Protestant or Catholic. It is this that gives force 
and effect to the " decent respect to the opinions of mankind." 
We who are here assembled have this day unanimously re- 
solved, at the instance of the Carpenters' Company, and qn 
motion of the honored " Father of the Centennials," Colonel 
Peyton, that " we deem it both proper and appropriate that 
the citizens of the United States, regardless of nationality, 
religious sect or denomination, should, in the interest of peace, 
fraternity, and future prosperity, suggest and commend a 
meeting of the human family in the city of Jerusalem, to give 
thanks and praise to God, the Father of all, and so appropri- 
ately celebrate the closing of the nineteenth and the opening 
of the twentieth century of the Christian era." 

Let us pray God that this noble and beneficent purpose, so 
fraught with good for humanity, may be carried out. Where 
He walked, proclaiming " Peace on earth, goodwill to man," 
there let the nations meet and take a high resolve to obey 
His imperative mandate, uttered in hour of supremest need, 
when Peter unsheathed his sword in the holiest cause that 
ever inspired a man to action, "Put up again thy sword into his 
place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." 

I know no fitter place in which to inaugurate this move- 
ment than Philadelphia, where Penn, by precept and example, 
taught the power of love, and none in which with greater 
propriety it can be consummated than in Jerusalem, where 
died the Prince of Peace. In such holy convocation of the 
human family, perhaps the first step towards a realization of 
the " parliament of man and the federation of the world," let 
His voice, still and small, yet mightier than the tempest or 
the earthquake, rise above the passionate quarrels of men ! 

" Down the dark future, through long generations, 
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease ; 
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, 

I hear once more the voice of Christ say, " Peace ! " 



